Athlon XPs overclocked so easily. Every one of them that I laid my hands on was bumped up from its default of 1500-1800 MHz to a dizzying 2.2 GHz. Before that, I had a few Spitfire Durons that were originally 600 MHz parts that I used a combination of the pencil trick and FSB changes to push to 933 to 1100 MHz. Before that, I pushed a couple of P54C Pentium-75 CPUs from 75 MHz to 90-100 MHz. Going way back, I had a 7.16 MHz Motorola 68000 in an Amiga 2000 that I clock doubled to 14.3 MHz before I bought a 68030 upgrade for it.

Modern CPUs simply do not have the thermal headroom like they did back five years ago and earlier. You can get ~4.0Ghz without too much trouble but going beyond 4.5Ghz it starts becoming dicey. De-lidding IHS might buy you a little more headroom but exposed cores don't take too kindly to the physical stress of modern HSF/waterblocks.

I'm more than content with my aging 3570K which is able to handle 4.0Ghz at stock voltage since 2012. I suppose it could probably handle 4.4Ghz-4.5Ghz if I wanted to be more adventurous but it isn't really worth the headaches.

At this point, I might as well save up for a complete overhaul. It mostly due to DDR4, NVMe and USB 3.1 Type-C support though.

De-lidding IHS might buy you a little more headroom but exposed cores don't take too kindly to the physical stress of modern HSF/waterblocks.

Delidding and replacing the thermal paste is what I tend to do. It's easy, low risk, and gets you MUCH better temps. The wife's 4770K dropped 30+ degrees under load after replacing the compound with liquid ultra.

De-lidding IHS might buy you a little more headroom but exposed cores don't take too kindly to the physical stress of modern HSF/waterblocks.

Delidding and replacing the thermal paste is what I tend to do. It's easy, low risk, and gets you MUCH better temps. The wife's 4770K dropped 30+ degrees under load after replacing the compound with liquid ultra.

Unless it was a poor job at the factory (Likely story with that 4770K and other earlier 22nm parts). You probably get closer to a 10-15C drop with just replacing the paste and correcting the placement of IHS. You still void the manufacturer's warranty though.

De-lidding IHS might buy you a little more headroom but exposed cores don't take too kindly to the physical stress of modern HSF/waterblocks.

Delidding and replacing the thermal paste is what I tend to do. It's easy, low risk, and gets you MUCH better temps. The wife's 4770K dropped 30+ degrees under load after replacing the compound with liquid ultra.

Unless it was a poor job at the factory (Likely story with that 4770K and other earlier 22nm parts). You probably get closer to a 10-15C drop with just replacing the paste and correcting the placement of IHS. You still void the manufacturer's warranty though.

Yup. My 6700K throttles at stock under a good waterblock and a big 360mm rad...it's especially poor.

Delidding and replacing the thermal paste is what I tend to do. It's easy, low risk, and gets you MUCH better temps. The wife's 4770K dropped 30+ degrees under load after replacing the compound with liquid ultra.

Unless it was a poor job at the factory (Likely story with that 4770K and other earlier 22nm parts). You probably get closer to a 10-15C drop with just replacing the paste and correcting the placement of IHS. You still void the manufacturer's warranty though.

Yup. My 6700K throttles at stock under a good waterblock and a big 360mm rad...it's especially poor.

That's insane, I thought hitting 93C~ on my 6700K in P95 @4.6ghz and 1.36~ vcore on my cheapy 212 evo was bad, I'm actually going to replace that cooler pretty soon, in well threaded games(and handbrake for that matter) I get around 70-75C which is fine except for the noise.